One of the salient features of today's modern organizations on a global, national, regional and local level is the ability to leverage information technology to command and control systems in real or near-real time. Advances in the technologies that integrate sensor and communications systems, for instance, facilitate determination of the precise location of mobile vehicles. Also, a plurality of modern information systems permit such location determination, including space, airborne, terrestrial and marine-based command and control systems.
Every vehicle equipped with such a command and control system is able to determine the location using global positioning system (GPS) technology, and then report that vehicle's information to higher command structures/systems using secure wireless linkages. Vehicles equipped with command and control systems also receive a variety of messages from higher command structures/systems, including the known locations of other related vehicles and other unknown or suspected locations of non-related vehicles. Command and control systems also allow vehicles to send and receive warning messages and, in turn, permit, for instance, the alerting of related vehicles about such significant events whether developing or in progress.
Though command and control systems warning messages are often manually generated, there are other information systems in use today, such as weather and tsunami stations, that automatically generate threat warning messages without human intervention. One of the military systems that automatically generates a threat warning message is the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder Counter-fire Radar, which is able to detect projectiles in flight, compute their predicted points of origin and predicted points of impact, and automatically broadcast this information to other systems. The above described system still leaves the most numerous and vulnerable assets, humans, exposed to threats. Thus, there is a need to significantly enhance survivability.
Accordingly, there is a need for a network information system that allows command organizations/structures to know the location in real time of all their remote human assets, such as dismounted soldiers, emergency responders, remote construction crews, etc., as well as warn those assets whenever an event, such as a man-made or environmental threat, exists or is inbound. These warnings must be expeditiously distributed, received, and processed to permit sufficient time for potentially affected human assets to alter their protective posture and/or take positive actions in response to the predicted event. In the past, this quick response time has not been achieved in practice. This is understandable when considering the vast number of end systems, and resulting costs required to equip every remote human asset in a field of operations.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system that enables training, simulation, and rehearsal capabilities, along with real-time use by organizations, first responders, public safety, emergency management personnel, etc. for providing warning of harmful events, such as natural disasters, medical emergencies, military threats, homeland security events, and natural disaster incidents. In addition, there is a need for remotely located individuals, such as skiers, hikers, etc. to be provided with warning of harmful events, such as sudden violent weather changes, avalanches, and natural disasters. Further, there is a need for remotely located vehicles and vessels to be provided with a warning of potentially harmful events, such as, for example, violent ocean conditions, sea state changes, and tidal waves.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a networked information system and method that combines a plurality of components to effectively distribute a real-time event warning/notification to many individual entities (i.e., small, easily transportable user warning and positioning devices) across dispersed locations, as well as a computer program product therefor. It is desirable that only the affected individual nodes be alerted of the future event, so as to minimize the amount of bandwidth needed for the system, as well as minimizing the cost of the user devices themselves. As such, it is desirable to determine, at a local node, whether or not these predicted events pertain to their locales, and react accordingly by transmitting an event warning message only to those affected individual nodes in communication with the local node.
It is another object of the present invention to enable the networked information system to monitor other connected information systems for externally and internally generated event warning/notification messages.
It is yet another object of the present invention to transmit event warning/notification messages on a secure wireless network whenever these are received.
It is another object of the present invention to enable the individual nodes to retransmit received event warning/notification messages to other user warning and positioning devices that may not have received the original message.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a tailored event warning/notification to a user of the networked information system, method and computer program product of the present invention, based on message and user-defined setup parameters.
Still a further object of the present invention is to track the location of each equipped organization, individual human asset and/or vehicle, and periodically report this information to designated command and control organizations/structures, whether space-based, airborne, terrestrial and/or marine-based, using standard or customized messaging formats.
Another object of the present invention is to enable the warning of each equipped organization, individual human asset, vehicle, or other entity every time a significant event is predicted to occur or impact within a given distance from the individual user's location. In doing so, it is desirable that the distance parameter be kept to a minimum, to preclude false positives, but also account for an expected event radius or area as well as for errors in determining the location of the user, and of the predicted point of event or impact.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a secure network system, by using encrypted communications. However, the end system itself should not compromise friendly forces, even when captured intact by an opponent. This means that the information contained in the devices carried by individual assets should be minimal, and of extremely limited utility to an adversary, in the case of a military or confidential application.
Furthermore, it is an object of the present invention to incorporate mechanisms that allow lost or captured devices to be selectively excluded from participating in the network.
It is still another object of the present invention to permit assets/users to carry an unobtrusive user warning notification device that is of minimal size. It is also an object of the present invention that the system user warning device be capable of operating for extended periods of times, on the order of weeks and months, in a tactical environment, with no required user interaction.
It is a further object of the present invention that the networked information system, method and computer program product of the present invention be applicable to training, simulation and rehearsal, along with real-time use by organizations, such as first responders, public safety, emergency management personnel, and provide warning of harmful events, such as emergency response, homeland security, and natural disaster incidents. In addition, it is an object of the present invention that the system, method and computer program product be applicable to remotely located individuals, such as skiers, hikers, etc., to be provided warning of harmful events, such as sudden violent weather changes, avalanches, natural disasters, etc.
Further, it is an object of the present invention that same be applicable to remotely located vehicles and vessels, so as to provide warning of harmful events, such as violent ocean conditions/sea state changes/tidal waves, for example.
It is also an object of the present invention, in order to overcome the difficulties discussed above, to provide a system and software program product for use in such a system, to automatically facilitate the real-time user warning notification to many individual entities across dispersed locations.
These and other objects in advantages of this invention will become apparent when considered in light of the following description when taken together with the accompanying drawings.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a robust, versatile and cost-effective solution for event warning/notification for individual entities. Unlike other notification approaches, this method allows for remote and virtually instantaneous, semi-distributed notification of future events or threats.